Chile holds the world's largest lithium reserves and is the world's second-largest producer. Lithium is currently produced from hard rock or brine mines. Australia is the world's biggest supplier, with production from hard rock mines. Argentina, Chile and China mainly produce it from salt lakes.
Lithium reserves by country
Chile has the largest lithium reserves worldwide by a large margin. Australia comes in second, with reserves estimated at 6.2 million metric tons in 2022. Mineral reserves are defined as those minerals that were extractable or producible at the time of estimate.
Australia is already the world's largest producer of spodumene—the base material for lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate—and has the second largest lithium ore reserves globally.
Tesla officially broke ground Monday on a Texas lithium refinery, making it the only U.S. automaker to refine its own lithium. CEO Elon Musk said the refinery will produce enough battery-grade lithium for 1 million electric vehicles by 2025, which would make Tesla the largest processor of lithium in North America.
Who is the biggest lithium producer in Australia. Pilbara Minerals (PLS) is by far the biggest lithium mining company in Australia. Owning the world's largest hard-rock lithium operations, Pilbara produces over 377,000 metric tons of lithium every year.
In total, there are four other hard-rock lithium operations in Western Australia's legacy mining regions around Kalgoorlie in the east and the Pilbara in the state's far north.
Australia mines about 53 percent of the world's supply of lithium, and virtually all of it is sold to China.
The world's largest hard-rock lithium mine, the Greenbushes mine, is in Western Australia. It is co-operated by the Chinese company Tianqi Lithium and the Australian companies Talison Lithium and IGO Limited. In 2021, it contributed 40% of the lithium mined in Australia.
Are lithium shares a good investment? While lithium share prices can be volatile due to supply-demand issues that impact the value of lithium as a commodity, the lithium sector does have good long-term growth prospects as the demand for lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles (EVs) continues to increase.
While the question of the supply of lithium for EV batteries is a valid one to raise, the abundant supply of lithium means it is unlikely that the world will ever run out of this vital resource.
Kovyktinskoye is the largest gas field in Eastern Russia. Lithium is contained in the associated brines, and there has been talk about its extraction for several years. The process accelerated in 2022, and Kovyktinskoye was put into production in late December 2022.
Before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Ukraine, home to approximately 500,000 tons of high-quality lithium and vast quantities of rare earth elements, was poised to be a key player in the global transition to green technology.
Out of the 26 million tons of global lithium reserves as per the U.S. Geological Survey published in January 2023, Chile was home to the largest lithium reserves base with 9.3 million tons of proven lithium reserves. Australia was ranked #2 based on the lithium reserves with a reserve base of nearly 6.2 million tons.
China's the largest consumer of lithium because of its booming electronics and electric vehicle industries.
Among them, Chile is China's main source of lithium carbonate imports. In 2021, China imports 64,000 tons of lithium carbonate from Chile, accounting for 78.7% of total imports, and imports of US$390 million, accounting for 69.4% of total imports.
Tesla has previously inked deals with Australia's own BHP, Syrah Resources, Liontown Resources and Piedmont Lithium to supply critical battery resources.
As the top lithium producer globally, Australia is home to many mines focused on the commodity. Learn where they are and which companies are running them. As the world's largest lithium producer and exporter, Australia is positioned to take full advantage of growing demand.
Australia is the world's largest lithium exporter. It was responsible for more than half of global production last year.
In financial year 2022, around 4.9 billion Australian dollars' worth of lithium were exported from Australia. Forecasts show Australia will export 18.6 billion Australian dollars' worth of lithium in fiscal year 2023. How is lithium used?
The report confirms Australia's status as the world leader in the production of five important commodities - bauxite, iron ore, lithium, rutile and zircon. In fact, we produced more than half of the world's lithium with record production in 2021, producing 55 kilotonnes compared to 40 kilotonnes the previous year.
In recent years, China has mainly relied on imports to meet domestic requirements for lithium carbonate products although China is one of the countries rich in lithium source reserves.
Lithium extraction has adverse impacts on the environment, like any other mineral that we mine for. However, similar to coal and gas, lithium mining can result in soil degradation, water shortages, biodiversity loss, damage to ecosystem functions, air contamination and, overtime, an increase in global warming.
The Greenbushes lithium mine is an open-pit mining operation which is in Western Australia and is the world's largest hard-rock lithium mine.
The process of extracting lithium consumes significant amounts of water and energy, and lithium mining can pollute the air and water with chemicals and heavy metals. In addition, mining lithium can disrupt wildlife habitats and cause soil erosion, leading to long-term ecological damage.